


Better Than Chicken Soup

by pollitt



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Common Cold, Cuddling & Snuggling, Derek is a well-mannered werewolf, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You’re not dying,” Derek answers, tossing the tissues in Stiles’s direction and dropping the medicine assortment on the bedside table. “You just have a cold.”</i>
</p><p>In which Stiles is (cold-induced) snotty and Derek plays nursemaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than Chicken Soup

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet chicken soup. Inspired by a recent rash of colds (my own included).
> 
> Thank you, as always, to Data for the beta.

The low, mournful moan that presses itself long and slow under and over the cracks of the closed bedroom door makes Derek’s heart press hard against his chest as he continues his search.

“This hurts.” He can hear Stiles say, his voice muffled and strained and his diction slurred. “Can you bring tissues, too? And maybe some cough drops.”

Okay, maybe his heart isn’t so much in pain as much as it’s trying to twist and look him in the eye and raise a metaphorical eyebrow, because he has no idea how he got here. ‘Here’ being him searching through shelves of towels and bed sheets and old prescription bottles that should have been tossed out years ago as he hunts for cold medicine for one very sick Stiles. 

“Yeah, just -- Hold on,” he says, loud enough so Stiles can hear him. He grabs a washcloth and abandons his current position for better prospects in the bathroom. As he runs cold water over the cloth, he opens the medicine cabinet and discovers what he’s been looking for. 

Derek wrings out the cloth and, armed with a box of tissues, a handful of cough drops and a blister pack of cold meds, heads back to Stiles. 

“I think I’m dying,” Stiles says, barely lifting his head off of the pillow when Derek opens the bedroom door. He’s kicked his blankets down to the end of his bed; the top of one sheet is tangled with his foot, as he’s curled in a sort of crescent moon shape. 

Derek absolutely does not feel the skin prickle at the back of his neck. No.

“You’re not dying,” Derek answers, tossing the tissues in Stiles’s direction and dropping the medicine assortment on the bedside table. “You just have a cold.”

“Don’ tell me how I feel. Just because you never get sick.” Stiles sits up in bed and uses up a fistful of tissues to blow his nose. When he’s done, he looks at Derek and Derek can see his glassy eyes are slightly more focused than they had been before, and there’s a crease on Stiles’s cheek from a fold in his pillowcase, “You just get shot or scratched or stuff like that. It is so not fair that you don’t get a cold. I bet you would be the biggest baby ever.”

“You think so, huh?” Derek picks up the trashcan and Stiles tosses the used tissues. 

“You so would.” Stiles coughs and then continues. “You’d probably ask me to cut off your head to make the sinus pressure end.”

“Why don’t you save your energy for getting better from your real cold rather than speculating on my hypothetical one.” 

“It’s keeping me amused while you play serious-faced, but totally hot, nurse.” Stiles attempts a leer but ends up sending himself into another coughing fit. 

Derek sighs--both internally and externally--and realizes what it’s finally come to. 

“How about this. Since, as you’ve just complained, I can’t get sick, will you stop claiming you’re on death’s door if I get into bed with you?” Stiles’s smile is bright as his eyes water and his nose starts running again, and Derek is so totally screwed that he finds that anything short of disgusting. He hands Stiles the washcloth. “But first, this. You’re leaking again.”

As Stiles wipes his face into temporary cleanliness, Derek toes off his sneakers and pulls off his belt. He slides onto the bed, turning on his side and watching as Stiles slides down next to him, pushing him onto his back and resting his head on Derek’s chest. 

“This is so not one of the many, _many_ ‘in bed’ scenarios I had in mind for us while my dad was gone. Stupid cold.”

Derek wraps his arms around Stiles’s shoulders--he can feel the heat of Stiles’s fever radiating through the fabric of his shirt--and pulls him closer. For once, he muses, he’s not the hottest body in the bed. “Next time,” he says, rubbing Stiles's back.


End file.
